@GoDaddy, MYSQL database sizes, and how to fix them

@GoDaddy, MYSQL database sizes, and how to fix them

Like all realbloggers, I self-host and as such, there are times that I have to do my own repair. One of these times happened last night.

I received an email threat from GoDaddy stating that my database size for this blog was 3000mb. I was limited to 1000mb. They were going to kill this blog on March 30 if I did not correct it.

So, I went searching. I mean, I have 6 years of material here. I couldn’t just let it die. And I may have said some unnice things about GoDaddy.

Then, I found the answer.

If you use, and you do, the Akismet plugin to kill spam, you might think you are deleting spam comments, especially if you click the button that says “delete spam.” Here’s the problem. You aren’t deleting everything.

In the space of 5 years of self-hosting, I’ve brought along with me about 2880mb’s worth of deleted spam comments.

So, this is what you do.

Go to your phpAdmin. In GoDaddy, this is much simpler than it used to be.

So a SQL query:

select * from wp_commentmeta where meta_key like “%akismet_%”

If you noticed a huge amount, it may be time to delete.

Do another query.

delete from wp_commentmeta where meta_key like “%akismet_%”

Right now, my database is sitting at about 120mb.

You see the difference there, right? This is not GoDaddy’s fault, as some forums said. This is Akismet’s issue, but the user should be able to fix it.

Also, get this plugin. It helps to discard useless junk from your database, but it will not delete the metadata, such as Akismet.